Baltic mayor’s airline to fly from late June

A private-public partnership in Lithuania aims to have a new airline in the air by July. Air Lituanica, a company controlled by private investors and the local authority of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, should start operations in late June with a route to Brussels. It is the pet project of the mayor of Vilnius, Arturas Zuokas.The venture will generate revenues of LTL 40 million (€11.6 million) by the end of 2013, Air Lituanica CEO Erikas Zubrus said in a press conference in Vilnius, and more than LTL 250 million by the end of 2015. By that time, he claimed, the company would start making a profit.Air Lituanica would offer direct flights to six destinations – Brussels and Amsterdam initially and later Berlin, Prague, Munich and Moscow. It would operate a 76-seat Embraer 170 and an 86-seat Embraer 175, one of them leased from Estonian Air.15min.lt[image courtesy Air Lituanica]